


silence

by noyabeans (snowdrops)



Series: writing with snowdrops (saso 2017) [9]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 22:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11519031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/pseuds/noyabeans
Summary: Osamu gets used to the quiet that Atsumu leaves behind.





	silence

**Author's Note:**

> fill for **saso 2017 bonus round 4: quotes**.  
>  original prompt is [here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=14077041#cmt14077041).
> 
> quote:  
> “I’ve been prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence.”  
> ― Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

When Atsumu receives the invitation to the youth training camp, the first thing Osamu thinks of is the blessed peace he’ll be granted for a few days, but the thought is immediately driven out of his mind when Atsumu turns to him, bright-eyed and beaming, and says, louder than necessary considering how close they’re standing, “Yah, ‘Samu, do you think I’ll meet Oikawa’s successor there?”

“Probably,” Osamu says. “His team did beat Shiratorizawa after all.”

Then Atsumu launches into another rant about how close that match had been, even though they’d played five sets (at this point, Osamu knows pretty much everything he has to say about Miyagi’s qualifier match), and _Do you think we’ll get to play them at Nationals?_ and _What should we get for dinner?_

Osamu’s only half-tuned in; it’s a skill he’s perfected over his seventeen years of life. After all, if he were to listen to Atsumu with 100% focus all the time, he’d probably be deaf by now.

Of course, Osamu’s exaggerating. It’s just that when Atsumu really gets into a chatty mood, like now - and 80% of his waking hours - he can talk enough for the whole twenty minutes it takes for them to walk home from school and make an impromptu stop at the convenience store for a pork bun. Sometimes he wonders if it’s physically possible for ears to be talked off.

So when he waves goodbye to Atsumu at the train station two weeks later, he’s almost looking forward to the promise of silence that the training camp will bring. Truth be told, he’s not used to being separated from Atsumu; as far as he can recall, they’ve never been parted for more than a few hours. Nonetheless, a week without having to wake up to a missing jacket or a stolen pair of socks, or underwear, or anything, would be a welcome break.

He feels the difference almost immediately, as he gets into the car with his parents. Only one back door slams shut, only one seat belt in the backseat clicks into place, and the leather is unusually spacious without another body to jostle for space with.

On the way home, his parents talk about taxes and bills and groceries to get, but he’s barely listening, the car feeling strangely silent in the absence of Atsumu’s voice, even as they pull up onto rough gravel in the driveway.

For the most part, Osamu appreciates his newfound peace. When he wakes up in the morning, his clothes are where he left them before going to bed, safe from his brother’s grabby hands, as are his stationery and his laptop cable, but it is on the second night when he’s lying in bed that he realises how quiet life actually is without Atsumu.

It’s not so much because of the silence as it is the lack of sound. Osamu has grown used to falling asleep to Atsumu’s snores, the rustle of blankets as he tosses and turns in bed minutes before slipping into slumber, and occasionally, when he shifts too much, he hits his head against the headboard with a muted grunt.

And on more than one occasion as he walks home from school, Osamu catches himself half-expecting a heavy arm drape itself around his shoulders, and Atsumu to make a snarky comment from somewhere behind him, only to be surprised when there is only silence, before memory catches up and he remembers that for now, he is alone.

On the third day of training camp Atsumu calls home, grinning and loud and racuous, and Osamu doesn’t say anything, but he hears the way Atsumu’s voice lilts and dips as he tells him everything that’s happened, about Oikawa’s disciple Tobio-kun and as the words wash over him, he sinks back into their warmth, and some tiny, fond part of him thinks that maybe Atsumu’s loudness isn’t all that bad after all.

Still, he’s only half-listening to Atsumu. Can’t have him talking off his ear when he comes home, can he?

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr (rielity)](https://rielity.tumblr.com/) | [twitter (noyabeans)](https://twitter.com/noyabeans) | [haikyuu writing journal](https://noyabeans.dreamwidth.org/)


End file.
